The Dow Family: Metro PCS Dallas Marathon

It was only three weeks since our previous visit to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but this trip had been on the calendar for months. Back in September, around the time of my birthday, I decided that I wanted to train for another ½ marathon and I fully had Heather talked into doing it with me, but as it turned out I did this one solo (which was probably a good thing as I needed to do this for ME).

BUT this was far from entire weekend alone.

Heather & I have been "planning" a weekend to her sister's house in Southlake for years and this race seemed like the perfect opportunity to go. In addition to Heather & I going to Carla's house, we also took Danni, Kaden & Owen with us for the long weekend.

Did I mention that Carla has a HUGE house with plenty of room for kids to run around & play?

As we were wondering what we should do that first Friday afternoon, Carla suggested that we eat lunch at the Rainforest Cafe in Grapevine.

mesmerized by the tank of colorful fish as we waited our turn to be seated

Honestly, this was one of the most enjoyable meals that I've ever been to with kids.

Just watching Kaden & Danni (and even Owen's reactions) to all of the animals in the restaurant was truly entertaining. Heather & I almost died from laughter as Kaden & Danni thought the crocodile at the entrance was a statue... you should have seen their startled faces when it's head suddenly snapped up and he opened his powerful jaws, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth. Hilarious!

Owen, days away from his 1^st birthday.

Luckily Kaden was pretty entertained the entire weekend by Danni and Carla's daughter, Jenna as well as the other high school kids that were in & out of the house all weekend.

Owen & I were able to sneak out to Central Market & the marathon expo on Saturday afternoon.

AND best of all, the boys somehow managed to sleep in the morning of the race (the morning I had to wake up at 4:30 am in order to head downtown and find a parking spot).

The paper claimed there were around 25,000 runners signed up to run that morning.

Everyone lined up and ready to go... waiting to cross the start line.

Believe it or not, I was in the front 1/3 of the pack, close to the pace sign I wanted to maintain.

I always run with my phone (iPod) tucked into my shirt, so I attempted to snap a few pictures on Instagram while running. Amazingly enough few of them actually turned out pretty good!

Making our way across the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge

The weather is always pretty hit & miss in Dallas at this time of year, but on THIS particular day it was a balmy 65° throughout the entire race. I knew a bunch of girls who ran this race the previous year and it was COLD & rainy the whole time.

circling back and running towards downtown, before approaching Turtle Creek

I met a guy at the start line that I kept passing/getting passed by (not this guy) and we got to talking as we were waiting for the race to start. He said that he had been training for this race for a few months and his goal was to finish just under 2 hours... That was a goal of mine too, but I didn't really think it would happen that morning. Anyway, just after mile 8 (about the time I was really wanting to walk for a minute), he gave me a thumbs up sign and said that we were on pace to make our goal. I simultaneously thought "YES!" & "Dammit!" as I knew I wouldn't let myself walk from that point on...

At the finish line, this guy stopped me and said that he was trying to match my pace through the last 5 miles & thanked me for helping him reach HIS goal (1:59...) We both fist pumped the air & yelled, as only nutty distance runners would do in that euporic state after finishing a race...

What a good day!